“According to a report issued Friday by Net Applications, the Web presence of Android devices peaked in November at 28% and has been drifting down ever since,” Philip Elmer-DeWitt reports for Fortune.

“By contrast, Apple’s iOS has climbed since October, after the company launched the iPhone 5 and the iPad mini,” P.E.D. reports. “That’s quite a different story than the one being told by market research firms like IDC, which has Samsung’s Android-based smartphones outselling the iPhone and Samsung’s tablets rapidly catching up to Apple’s iPad. ‘IDC says Android is the new king of tablet market share,’ was Thursday’s headline on CNNMoney.”

MacDailyNews Take: How CNN arrived at that lie of a headline is baffling, since even they managed to report corrected under it that, “Apple’s fourth-quarter share of shipments came to 43.6%. It’s still the top vendor by a mile…” In other words, Apple is quite obviously still the king, despite the lie CNN attempts to perpetrate in the headline on their website.

P.E.D. reports, “I was skeptical of IDC’s tablet shipment numbers Thursday, given that of the major tablet manufacturers, only Apple actually releases unit sales data. And I’m doubly skeptical today, given the trends shown in Net Applications’ data… How can Google’s Android be the king of tablets and smartphones if more than 60% of Web users are on Apple devices and only 24.5% on Android?”

a) confused about why they should be choosing an iPhone over an inferior knockoff and therefore might be less prone to understand/explore their devices’ capabilities or trust their devices with credit card info for shopping; and/or
b) enticed with “Buy One Get One Free,” “Buy One, Get Two or More Free,” or similar ($100 Gift Cards with Purchase) offers.

Neither type of customer is the cream of the crop when it comes to successful engagement or coveted demographics; loser to the bottom of the barrel than the top, in fact. Android can be widespread and still demographically inferior precisely because of the way in which and to whom Android devices are marketed. Unending BOGO promos attract a seemingly unending stream of cheapskate freetards just as inane, pointless TV commercials about robots or blasting holes in concrete walls attract meatheads and dullards, not exactly the best demographics unless you’re peddling muscle building powders or grease monkey overalls.

Google made a crucial mistake: They gave away Android to “partners” who pushed and continue to push the product into the hands of the exact opposite type of user that Google needs for Android to truly thrive. Hence, Android is a backwater of second-rate, or worse, app versions that are only downloaded when free or ad-supported – but the Android user is notoriously cheap, so the ads don’t sell for much because they don’t work very well. You’d have guessed that Google would have understood this, but you’d have guessed wrong. Google built a platform that depends heavily on advertising support, but sold it to the very type of customer who’s the least likely to patronize ads.

iOS users are the ones who buy apps, so developers focus on iOS users. iOS users buy products, so accessory makers focus on iOS users. iOS users have money and the proven will to spend it, so vehicle makers focus on iOS users. Etcetera. Android can have the Hee Haw demographic. Apple doesn’t want it or need it; it’s far more trouble than it’s worth.

[Thanks to MacDailyNews readers too numerous to mention individually for the heads up.]

The wallstreet journal didnt say a word today about iOS leading mobile sales today. Even bloomberg had the correct headline. I have no doubt the media is part of this game and i cant believe no one can do anything about this. Samsungs chairman is an ex convict, they are criminals they have money and everyone has a price.

Hey, look, if you’re trying to monetize a website that publishes “News”, why not sell the real-estate to the highest bidder? After all, it’s just bits and bytes. If I was trying to run a franchise like that, you can bet I’d be offering premium space to Samedung. Why? Because they’ll pay for it! It’s so friggin’ obvious that that’s what’s going down here. Even MDN sells ads to Samescum.

Its not ethical for the press to do that. Im cool with mdn selling ad space. But to run stories and headlines based on who is paying is plain wrong and should be against the law. Just like analysts have to disclose a long or short position when talking anout a stock, publications should disclose who is paying for that story too,

Perhaps a nice way of putting things than MDN does is that a lot of (maybe most of) Android sales are to people that don’t particularly want smartphones or tablets, but get them anyway because there are low end Android devices as cheap as the products they actually want (feature phones and ebook readers).

Most of the people that buy Android phones aren’t buying them as portable computers, they are buying them as better featured versions of what five years ago would have been Symbian running smart phones. They snap and text pictures with them, maybe put mp3s on them, and mostly use the phones for talking and texting. (It would be interesting to know what percentage of android phone users even have email set up on their phones.)

Similarly, a lot of people are getting (probably mostly from amazon) products that IDC counts as tablets but that the buyers are just using as ereaders, if they are using them at all. Of the Kindle Fires sold, how many are being used to do anything other than download books from amazon or the library, and how many are sitting in closets or desk drawers.

I like the trend, but it’s far more modest than the headline suggests. He’s used percentages in a manner that more than doubles the real change in their respective shares of web traffic. It’s misleading and lame. We’re better served by the truth.